As I mentioned in my first post, I intend, here and there in this Blog, to share portions of a book I am writing about the fictional life of a rather cynical lawyer who seems to get himself into a host of difficulties, most of his own making. The book is also a humorous look at life in a large law firm. The lawyer’s name is Frank Stanton. Let me introduce you to Frank today by way of a part of Legal Lore, a “Legal Legend” that he stumbled upon during his law school days.
Frank attended law school in a medium sized city in the South West. He was not a brilliant student but managed to get pretty decent grades, primarily because he worked and studied a lot harder than those around him, out of fear mostly, because so many students in his class sounded a lot more brilliant than he was. Frank had also been out of school for awhile doing nothing that one could say would have improved his learning skills. Fortunately for Frank, he soon learned that sounding brilliant and studying little led many of those other students to seek other careers after his law school gently pushed them out the door.
Frank didn’t come from wealth and was forced to work throughout school as a law clerk with local firms. His most memorable position was with a private practitioner who specialized in civil litigation and had a name that sounded like a lawyer’s – John Robert Spencer, informally called simply “John Robert” by his friends, colleagues, adversaries and even Judges. Shortly after coming to work for John Robert, Frank started hearing a bizarre and somewhat frightening story about a day, a busy day, in an earlier part of John Robert’s legal career.
John Robert was not a particularly good lawyer in the technical sense. He knew little about the actual law and relied heavily on his clerks to write his pleadings and briefs. He often was careless during trial, allowing very damaging evidence to be admitted, evidence that most first year law students had learned was ripe for a successful objection. As often as he could, he would take his law clerk to court with him, and whenever John Robert felt an elbow in his side, he would rise immediately and boldly shout “objection!” while his clerk would whisper the basis for the objection in John Robert’s ear. Unfortunately, his clerks could not always second chair John Robert’s trials and these were the most dangerous times in any of his cases.
John Robert’s strengths however, and the reason he won more than he lost, was his style and incredible oratory skills during opening and closing statements to the jury. In a town where courtroom attire typically involved white shoes and white belts with perhaps a pastel colored sport coat, John Robert always wore a three-piece pinstriped suit with gold watch chain, handkerchief and other impressive accessories. He looked like a real lawyer particularly with a full head of striking white wavy hair.
But it was oratory that saved John Robert. A student of Shakespeare and a reader of everyone from Plato to Kipling, John Robert peppered his speeches to the jury with moving, if not relevant, quotations and had an uncanny ability to read juries and evoke emotional responses rarely seen in court.
He was a busy lawyer and often had more than one case pending in court at any given time. On the day the “Legend” was born, John Robert was in the midst of two pending civil trials and he had over the course of the prior three days, depending upon the Judges’ schedules, moved back and forth from one courtroom to the other.
At this time, John Robert was trying a case involving an automobile accident in which serious passenger injuries were incurred. John Robert represented the defendant in this case, an insurance company. The other case was quite different. It involved a commercial real estate contract which had gone bad and John Robert represented the plaintiff suing for damages.
The entire morning on this particular day was consumed with completing the evidentiary portion of the automobile accident case. That finished, the Judge called a recess just before lunch and told the lawyers and jury to return for closing arguments at 2 PM. John Robert immediately spoke with the Judge in his other case, which was scheduled to reconvene that afternoon as well, and arranged for that trial to be pushed back until 3:30 PM. He then went to lunch.
John Robert was known to have a couple of drinks at lunch, martinis typically, which was no crime in those days. On some occasions, he would have three, as he did this day. This habit never seemed to interfere with his trial skills, which were minimal anyway, and there is some evidence that a drink or two even enhanced his oratory skills before the jury.
Unfortunately John Robert’s law clerk (this was before Frank’s time) had exams this day and was not able to attend either trial with John Robert. This might have helped prevent the events that were soon to occur and nipped a local legend in the bud.
John Robert, opposing counsel, the jury and the Judge were all in place at 2 PM for closing arguments in the automobile case. The plaintiff’s attorney went first and made a fine argument, most of which John Robert was not listening to, thinking ahead to his weekend fishing trip in the northern part of the state.
Yet, when his time came, John Robert rose confidently with a stern but fair look on his face, pushed his shoulders back and strode purposefully to the jury box. He painted a handsome and larger than life picture. John Robert then proceeded to give, what to this day, has been described as his greatest closing argument.
He quoted Shakespeare twice (“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings,” and “The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth as the gentle rain upon the place beneath.”); Plato (“No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.”); and Sophocles (“There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.”) At points during John Robert’s closing argument, jurors were brought to tears.
When completed, John Robert simply told the jury what he always told ever jury, “You and I know what justice requires in this case. Simply render it here and we will all leave with our heads held high.”
Had John Robert looked at the judge or his client at any point during his closing argument, which he never did, and seen the stunned look on their faces, the legend might have been avoided. In any event, when John Robert turned slowly from the jury and walked proudly back to his seat, opposing counsel leaned over and said “John Robert, that was perhaps the finest closing argument I have ever heard from you, or any other attorney for that matter. Unfortunately” and John Robert’s opponent smiled slightly at this point, “it was the closing argument for your other case.”
And it had been. To any rational listener, a closing argument for the plaintiff in a real estate commercial case was as irrelevant to the facts of an automobile case defense as anyone could imagine. To his credit, however, John Robert showed no emotion and in fact turned to the jury again and smiled as if to say “The justice of the land is in your hands.”
The judge had no choice but to instruct the jury, send it off to deliberate and wait with everyone else for what seemed to be an inevitable verdict in favor of the plaintiff.
When the jury returned within the hour, the judge asked if a unanimous verdict had been reached and when the foreman answered in the affirmative, she asked him to read the verdict. The foreman stood tall looked diectly at John Robert and loudly read “We find for the defendant in this matter your Honor.” John Robert stood, thanked the jury, congratulated his stunned client and left.
Frank worked for John Robert Spencer for two years and of course heard this tale many times from other attorneys and the speculation about the reasons for the incomprehensible verdict. Some felt that the jury had been paying about as much attention during the trial as John Robert had and never truly understood what it was about. Others felt that the Plaintiff’s attorney had confused the jury with too much evidence and finally, a small minority still believe that the jury knew full well that John Robert’s close was not related in the slightest way to the case but they felt that he had to be rewarded for the speech itself.
But John Robert never brought it up while Frank was working for him and Frank simply lacked the courage to ask him about it. It was a great story and Frank chose to leave it be. “How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there’s no help in the truth,” Sophocles.
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